OLDaily By Stephen Downes September 5, 2002 The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay Are blogs like comics? John Hiler poses this interesting question after reading this novel. By John Hiler, Microcontent News, September 4, 2002 [Refer][Research][Reflect] Record Companies Win Injunction Against Madster The music industry managed to shut down Napster, but despite winning an injunction the RIAA will have less success with Napster's inevitable follow-up, Madster. "Madster founder Johnny Deep... said he didn't know of a way to block only copyrighted files because the transferred material is encrypted. Asked if he would shut it down, Deep said, 'There's nothing I can do to shut it down. It's the Internet. I can't shut the Internet down.'" Madster used to be called Aimster, but changed its name after a dispute with America Online. By AP, San Jose Mercury News, September 4, 2002 [Refer][Research][Reflect] University to Challenge Copyright Laws This headline is a bit misleading. A bit. According to the item, "Duke University's law school has received an anonymous $1 million gift to fund advocacy and research aimed at curtailing the recent expansion of copyright law." But that's not exactly how they will spend it: the university "is using the money to fund a center focused on finding 'the correct balance' between intellectual property rights and material that should be in the public domain." By Staff Writer, CNet, September 4, 2002 [Refer][Research][Reflect] Technologies for Education: Potential, Parameters and Prospects This book released by UNESCO has Sir John Daniel's stamp all over it as it examines the use of new technologies in education, leading us toward a discussion of open and virtual universities. Good worldwide focus with cases from such places as Honduras, Morocco and Uganda (among many others). The entire book is available online in PDF format; I list one article below. By Wadi D. Haddad and Alexandra Draxler, Editors, UNESCO, September, 2002 [Refer][Research][Reflect] Virtual Universities: Challenging the Conventions of Education On the surface this article is a survey of some virtual universities around the world, and thus is a good indicator of this growing trend in education. But it also links their success to what it calls "useful distance education" - "a measurable value added toward achieving the results defined by the ideal vision (i.e., the kind of world we want to create for our children) of a society, the mission objective of an organization, and the objectives of an individual." By Ryan Watkins and Michael Corry, Technologies for Education, September, 2002 [Refer][Research][Reflect] Long Island Company Tricked Students Into Providing Private Information Legal action has been launched against a New York company that may have decieved students in order to collect personal information. The company is alleged to have encouraged teachers to collect data that was then sold to marketers. Students were "left with the impression that the information that is gathered will generate a survey and then will be used by universities to help these students. Nowhere in this letter does it say that SMG is a marketing company." By Unknown, WABC, August 29, 2002 [Refer][Research][Reflect] RSS Tutorial for Content Publishers and Webmasters Introduced on the RSS list as "Yet Another RSS Tutorial", this guide is a nice clear summary of Rich Site Summary (RSS) formats. Includes links to tools and reference material. A good article to read if you've never heard of RSS and wonder why you would be interested. By Mark Nottingham, September 4, 2002 [Refer][Research][Reflect] Know a friend who might enjoy this newsletter? Feel free to forward OLDaily to your colleagues. If you received this issue from a friend and would like a free subscription of your own, you can join our mailing list at http://www.downes.ca/cgi-bin/website/subscribe.cgi [ About This NewsLetter] [ OLDaily Archives] [ Send me your comments]